Eden Park Students are Top Peanut Butter Collectors

Students at collected more jars of peanut butter than the more-than 100 other schools, businesses and organizations that participated in Washington Trust's 11th annual PB Xpress peanut butter drive.

Between March and April, Eden Park students collected 492 jars totaling 600 pounds of peanut butter. It's roughly the same amount they collected last year, which means in two years, the school has delivered more than a half ton of peanut butter to families in need.

“This is an outstanding effort by the young students and we thank them for their contributions,” said Joseph J. MarcAurele, Washington Trust chairman, president, and CEO.  “By participating in this community food drive, they have learned lessons to last them a lifetime.”

The children understand the importance of helping those in need,” said Eden Park Elementary School Principal, Cheryl Anderson.  Adding, “Knowing this was a worthy cause that would directly impact local families, they were more than eager to participate. “This was truly a community effort to bring awareness to the anti-hunger campaign and to do their part to help.  I am so proud to be a part of this school community.”

The school finished on top through motivation. School officials set up an internal, school-wide contest to reward the class that collected the most peanut butter. That class was Mrs. Torres' sixth grade class. Miss Grandolfi's first graters finished second.

“I feel it is very important for the students' to be involved in the community and to participate in community service related projects.  I try to get them to understand that they can make a difference and to help those that are in need or less fortunate.  They were very excited to see the daily chart to calculate how many came in for the classroom and then being able to see the school wide chart continue to increase,” said Ann Marie Torres, Eden Park’s sixth grade teacher.

To recognize the student's hard work, Washington Trust hosted a pizza party to thank the top fundraising classes.

The PB Xpress campaing collected a total of seven tons of peanut butter this year. Since 2001, a total of 94 tons have been collected. That's enough peanut butter to make three million sandwiches.